This is the 2020 edition of the VC Tech Stack released in January 2020. It is a report on the tools and solutions used by Venture Capital firms and entrepreneurship-related entities.
Categories include: scheduling, chat, audio and video, community and sharing knowledge, automation, CRMs and dealflow solutions, talent, files, and many more.
4. Respondents profiles
Most respondents are VCs with funds ranging form 45M to 400M focusing on the Seed - Series A
stages and have teams that go from 3 to 30 people.
When it comes to budget, 47% have a budget of 50K or less and a vast majority of the
respondents plan to increase or maintain their Tech budget during 2020.
With 21 respondents the dataset is not too big but it is still interesting to discover what tools are
being used by the community.
5. Type of companies
What would best describe your company?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
6. Stage of investment
If applicable, at what stage(s) do you primarily invest in?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Comment:
Almost all respondents focus on Seed - Series A investments
7. What was the currency of the last fund you
raised?
14 out of 21 people answered this question
Fund - Size & Currency
If applicable, what was the size of your last
fund? (in Millions)
16 out of 21 people answered this question
Average: 132
Min: 45
Max: 400
38%: Less than 100M
43%: Between 100M+ and less than 200M
19%: 200M+
Note: the values listed above ignore the currency of the fund and
the date in which the fund was closed but still give us some
indication of the respondent’s fund sizes.
8. Location
Where are you located?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Comment:
All respondents are from the EU (US & “Other” were in the list
of options)
In this context Europe = Continental Europe. This might not
have been very clear but I ensure to make this clearer on the
next edition.
9. Team size
What is the size of your team?
20 out of 21 people answered this question
Average: 13
Min: 3
Max: 30
40% are part of teams with less than 10 people
45% are part of teams with 10+ and less than 20 people
15% are part of teams of over 20+ people
What is the size of your Platform team?
19 out of 21 people answered this question
Average: 2.5
Min: 1
Max: 6
42% have a platform team of 1
26% have a platform team of 2
32% have a platform team of 3+
On average 22% of the team is on a platform role
10. Tech budget
What is your yearly tech budget?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Comment:
All respondents answered this question but a large percentage
were not sure or didn’t know what their tech budget was.
47% of the respondents have a budget of 50K or less.
From those that know what their tech budget was:
— 83% have a budget of 50K or less
— 50% have a budget of 20K or less
11. Tech budget for 2020
For 2020, what do you plan to do in regards to your tech budget?
20 out of 21 people answered this question
Comment:
Almost all respondents answered but a large percentage were
not sure or didn’t know.
From all respondents:
— 70% plan to Maintain or Increase their tech budget
— 30% plan to Increase their tech budget
From those that have a tech budget plan for 2020:
— 100% plan to maintain or increase their tech budget
— 43% plan to increase their tech budget
— 57% plain to maintain their tech budget
13. Data
The data was collected in Q3 2019 and this report was
compiled in January of 2020.
21 different people completed this 31question Typeform
survey and selected 800 options.
The tool-related questions were multiple-choice and allowed
the respondent to pick more than one option.
15. Scheduling
What tools and solutions do you use to assist you in scheduling meetings and calls?
20 out of 21 people answered this question
Google Calendar
Google Calendar meeting slots
While obviously not a tech solution, a good PA
is frequently the best solution for this problem
16. Chat
What communication tool(s) do you use for "chat"?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Missive - missiveapp.com
Riot - riot.im
Question details:
This is for "chat/text" conversations only.
The next slide is about audio/video calls.
17. Audio & Video Calls
What communication tool(s) do you use for audio/video calls?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
18. Sharing knowledge
What tool(s) do you use to share knowledge amongst your portfolio/community?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Internal Newsletter
Dropbox
Trello
Email
Comment:
This is a pretty broad question/topic and the answers show it.
It is quite interesting to see how so many different tools are
being used for this purpose.
19. Note taking
What tool(s) do you use to take notes?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Affinity
Microsoft sticky notes
Trello
22. CRM - Insights
From the 21 respondents:
— 100% use at least 1 CRM system
— 38% use 2 CRM systems
— 10% use 3 CRM systems
23. Deal-flow management
What tool(s) do you use for deal-flow management?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Question details:
Sometimes this is the same as your CRM, but it's not
necessarily the case.
24. Portfolio management
What tool(s) do you use for portfolio management?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Question details:
List of portfolio companies, key team members, etc.
Comment:
Excel, Airtable and Google Docs are definitely the
winners in this category.
Streak - streak.com
Rundit - rundit.com
25. Cap Table management
What tool(s) do you use for cap table management? (If any)
20 out of 21 people answered this question
Salesforce
26. Portfolio monitoring and reporting
What tool(s) do you use for portfolio monitoring and reporting?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Fundrbird
Prequin and Power BI
Rundit
Salesforce
27. Researching & Benchmarking
What tool(s) do you use for researching and benchmarking?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Question details:
On companies pre/post-investment
SEMrush
28. Talent
What tool(s) do you use to support your portfolio finding talent?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Direct access to recruiters
Exploring Sompani
LinkedIn
None
Riminder
29. Files
What tool(s) do yo use for files/documents & decks?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Contractbook
Signaturit
Comment:
This question is very broad and you have three types
of services merged in here:
— File storage
— File sharing
— Document signing
30. Website
If you run a website/blog, what tool(s) do you use?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
Jekyll
31. Newsletter
If you run a newsletter, what tool(s) do you use?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
2x None
ActiveCampaign
32. Podcast
If you host a podcast, which tool(s) do you use?
15 out of 21 people answered this question
None
33. Events
What tool(s) do you use for running events?
21 out of 21 people answered this question
tame.events
34. Feedback
How do you collect feedback?
20 out of 21 people answered this question
35. Project management
What tool(s) do you use for project management? (If any)
20 out of 21 people answered this question
Google Docs
None
36. Expense management
What tool(s) do you use to manage your internal company expenses?
19 out of 21 people answered this question
3x ReceiptBank
Accountor
Datamolino
HRWorks
Webexpenses
37. Password management
What tool(s) do you use to manage your internal company expenses?
20 out of 21 people answered this question
Excel
Keepass
Okta